A loud beeping awoke Sam from his restless sleep, causing him to sit up with a groan. He looked over at the A.I sitting casually on the desk beside him. A smile graced her lips as he looked at the time and groaned again. Not that time actually mattered where they were.
“You always did enjoy watching me sleep. I always feel safer with you keeping and eye on me. Anyway what’s up?” he said, trying to clear his head of sleep while he got up and tossed his shirt into the corner, stretching as he did so.
The A.I smiled sadly for a second. “That's likely due to your profession. Besides, you haven’t been sleeping well; I just like to make sure you’re okay. And I thought you might want to know that we are approaching that planet you found,” she replied, a concerned look turning back into a smile as she spoke. “Get freshened up and meet me on the bridge in a few minutes.” The A.I stood up, flashed and disappeared.
Sam sat there clearing the last wisps of sleep from his mind.Looks like we'll finally get to see what that presence was. We're here not a moment to soon either. He thought, looking at the overhead light as it dimmed for a second before his pants followed his shirt. He stepped into the next room and the awaiting shower, gasping as the ice cold water stung his back. The hot water had run out a few months ago as they had had to transfer all their remaining power to keep the ship running.
I’ll never understand how the soldiers get used to this. As a psyker for the Blood Ravens Space marine chapter, and an apprentice to the Chief Librarian himself, Sam had been allowed to keep a few creature comforts on the voyage, such as hot water and his own room. Which he still stayed in even now, despite having the whole ship to himself, it just didn't feel right taking someone else's stuff, dead or not.
The ship he was currently on, The Litany of Fury, was a venerable battle barge of the Blood Ravens chapter and was assigned to their 3rd company. Although it was capable of holding three full companies and comfortably sustained in excess of 10,000 crew members, Sam and the ships A.I Aurora were the only current inhabitants. The ship had been seven weeks away from the end of its ten year research voyage when they had come across a rogue warp storm. Sam had been the only living thing aboard the ship to survive the storm and had woken up after the ship had passed through it, in another galaxy entirely. Now, ten months later, his master lay in the cryo chambers below, alongside Captain Gabriel Angelos and the rest of the crew.
Stepping out of the shower, Sam threw on a fresh set of clothes and sent his mind out to the aether plane, searching for any presences in the warp. After finding nothing he withdrew his mind and shook his head in confusion. That still doesn't make any sense; I haven’t felt anything since we came through, even Tzeentch himself isn't this good at hiding. He hit the lights to conserve power and made his way to the bridge.
The ships bridge was a large semi-circular room with blast-proof glass on the curved side. Empty chairs sat in front of row upon row of control consoles with a large main console in the centre, the ships blast shields were also currently lowered, hiding the planet from view. Sam walked up to the main console and sat down.
Hitting a button he watched patiently as the shields slowly rose, retracting into the ship and revealing the planet below. it was beautiful shades of blue and green, with swirling white clouds and a large central continent. Sam sat there wondering what life the planet could sustain before he was snapped out of his reverie by Aurora's voice.
"Scanners indicate that it is roughly the same size and climate as the planet Iax in the Ultramar system," she informed, appearing on the desk beside him, a data-pad in her hand.
"Useful information would be nice," Sam replied, taking a glance at her before looking back to the swirling planet. Noting that the shape of the continents seemed almost familiar to him.
"Uhh," Aurora sighed. "If you had actually studied the information Father Jonas gave you, you would know what that meant."
"I study daemons and the warp," he said with a wave of his hand. "I don't need to know all that stuff."
"Oh and we all know how well your exploits in THAT field turned out!" Aurora stated sarcastically, throwing her arms up in the air.
"Hey! I killed it!" Sam replied defensively, looking away from the planet to glare sullenly at her and recalling the incident with the rogue daemon.
"Anyway. It means that it's a Goldilocks planet, perfect size and distance from a star to support life," she continued, curling a stray hair that had fallen over her face back behind her ear.
"Wait, hold on. Wasn't Iax reduced to a dead world by Tyranid hive fleet Behemoth?" Sam interrupted, looking slightly confused.
"No. You're thinking of Pandium, same system and another example of a Goldilocks planet." -she grimaced- "Or it was." Aurora dismissed, waving a hand at him and continuing again. "It would also appear that there is what looks like civilisation on the main continent."
"No way. Ha, maybe we do have a chance." He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his dark blond hair.
"Your optimism inspires me." she said, rolling her eyes all the while. "We'll be planet side in just over two hours, so why don't you go lock down the ship now," -she frowned at the data-pad in front of her- "we certainly won't be stopping to do it then!"
Sam sat up slowly, looking at her in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"The little fuel we have left isn't going to be enough to stop our momentum, let alone give us a stabalised orbit. This ship is going straight into the planet whether we want it to or not," she said while pulling up the fuel and energy information for him to see for himself. "I'll try and reroute all power to the forward energy shield but I doubt that that will be near enough to do anything."
Sam didn't take his eyes off the planet below, nodding his head as he processed the information.Well, shit. . . Okay then. He thought to himself, eventually standing up and walking to the door. "I'm going to go secure the cryo chambers. try and give the crew as smooth a landing as possible."
After he had gone, Aurora turned back to gaze curiously at the swirling blue, green and white orb in front of them. It was really no surprise that the young psyker had reacted the way he had to the imminent destruction of their ship, the amount of times that he had been forced to stand against daemons, monsters and aliens in the last ten years was enough to either turn a man to stone, or completely and utterly destroy his mind. Neither of which had happened to Sam as he had somehow managed to retain his positive outlook on life, even in a galaxy destroyed by war. She thought back to the incident they had talked about, where Sam had been trying to create a link to a lesser daemon and had accidentally summoned a Bloodthirster. The greater daemon stood at 20 feet tall and by all rights the young warlock should never have been able to stand in its presence, let alone fight it. Yet by the time the other Librarians and psykers had got into the containment room where he was casting the spell, Sam had been sitting on the burning corpse and was having a casual conversation with the telekinetically supported head in front of him. The others never had fully understood how he had managed to defeat it, but Aurora had been watching, and what she had seen terrified her.
She shook the thoughts from her head and returned to the task at hand, those thoughts could wait for a better day.
Meanwhile, Sam had wandered through the ship and had finally reached the cryo chambers where the crew rested, over a hundred floors below the bridge of the vessel. Entering the code for the door lock, Sam walked through the opening and stopped for a minute, adjusting to the cold interior. When he felt comfortable, he walked up to one of the nearest pods, the one that held the body of Chief Librarian Jonas Urelie, his master, his teacher, and his greatest friend. The young psyker looked up at the peaceful face, silently wishing he could see the old man smile and laugh again, fully knowing that he never would. Sighing sadly he looked over at the next pod, this one held Captain Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens 3rd company, hero to worlds and, despite his dark past, an all round nice guy. Sam moved so that he stood in between the two pods, wanting to address both men at the same time.
looking down for a few seconds Sam thought about what he would say. Eventually shaking his head and looked up with a weak reminiscent smile. "We're. . . finally here. This ship has traveled hundreds of light years from where we started out, a simple research mission with an optimistic crew of almost five thousand. Now. . . Well I guess I'm all that's left. And we are finally here, the planet I told you about all those weeks ago, the uh, source of magic that I felt. . . Aurora says there's life down there you know. Maybe they'll be friendly? But then again, maybe not. Heh, wouldn't that be perfect, to travel MILLIONS OF MILES following a trace to finally arrive and get torn to pieces the moment you step out of the ship, goddamn perfect. . .Hey um. . The ship doesn't have enough fuel to stop our decent so we kinda going to end up crash landing. I'm going to have to put this place into lock-down to prevent any excess damage from the impact. . .I just, I just thought I would let you know before, you know, it all goes dark." Sam chuckled lightly and stood up straight, saluting the two men. "Whatever happens now, it was an honour to have you as my commanders. . .I'll make you proud."
He walked over to the control panel by the door and punched in the command, watching as metal bars extruded from the walls and locked the pods in place, before similar bars did the same from the ceiling and floor. Giving a final salute, Sam powered down the console, and walked out, the lights going off one by one as the doors slowly sealed shut.
As he walked back to the bridge, something didn't sit right, he knew there was something that he was overlooking but he couldn't quite figure out what.
When he opened the door and stepped into the large room, and saw Aurora sitting there staring out towards the planet it finally clicked.
"Hey Aurora?" Sam said curiously.
"Yeah. what is it?" she replied, still staring at the large main continent.
"What's going to happen to you? I mean. Aren't you bound to the ship or something? how are we going to get you off when we land?"
"Oh right that. don't worry about it. I'll just be in your head."
Sam looked at her sharply "I'm sorry what?!"
Aurora gave an exasperated sigh, Sam could be very very slow when he wanted to be. "I'll be inside your head." she explained slowly. "that way you can carry me around without having to lug anything extra off the ship."
"Umm. Okay? But I thought you needed to connect to computer systems or something." Sam said apprehensively.
"You've had implants in your head since training remember. I'll be able to connect through those."
"Oh right. Yeah I had forgotten about those." he laughed before stopping for a minute, a trouble look on his face. "Just. . If you see a big barrier of something, it may look like a sealed door. Don't open it, don't even go near it. Just. . . Yeah just leave it alone." He looked up at her with worried eyes.
"What? have all your little secrets locked away?" Aurora teased, laughing softly to herself and fluttering her eyelashes at him.
"Don't do that, please. It's, extremely unnerving to have a computer program flirting with me. seriously though!" Sam shivered before looking at her seriously "What's behind that door is a by-product of my incident with the Bloodthirster. And trust me, you never want to meet what's in there."
Aurora laughed at his rebuttal before a worried look flashed across her face. "Okay. Now. . stay still. I'm going to try to connect to your implants. If all goes well, I should be in your head in about ten seconds."
"Wait you're doing it now?"
"Of course. I have to make sure I can connect with your implants before I start to transfer the programs." She dismissed, a look of concentration coming across her face. "Seriously now. Don't move."
"Oh joy. Just what I've always wanted. Another voice inside my head." He muttered to himself as Aurora flashed then disappeared. A few seconds passed before his head started tingling and he could feel the other presence enter it.
"There, great. Now I can enter and leave your implants any time I want." Came Aurora's silent voice.
"Ok that's just creepy. Yeah it's going to take me a while to get used to you're voice coming from in there. Oh well, c'est la vie I guess." Sam sat down at the console and started to look through the information Aurora had gathered on the planet.
"Hey Sam?" Aurora's ghostly voice asked.
Yeah, what's the problem?"
"I think I found the door you were talking about. It's at the end of this long bleak corridor and it looks like a full set of blast doors with a big red symbol on it." Aurora said apprehensively, walking slowly down the corridor towards it.
"What's the symbol look like?" She heard his voice ask in a curious tone from what appeared to be a com system.
"It's an upside down pentagram." She replied, shivering as she felt the power contained within the large doors before her.
She heard him sigh "Yeah that's likely to be it. I. . . I wouldn't get to close to it ok."
Aurora was about to reply when an earsplitting shriek came from beyond the door, causing her to freeze in place with a look of terror. "What the fuck was that!" she whispered loudly.
"What happened? What did you do?" Sam's worried voice came through over the intercom.
"I didn't. . do anything. There was this high pitched scream from the other side of the door."
"Aurora." Sam said in a serious voice. "I want you to listen very. . very carefully. Look around you slowly, don't make any sudden movements, are there any dark patches, walls, floor or ceiling, it doesn't matter? Also, are there any scratch marks along the walls or floor, ones that look like they were made with claws? Likely in sets of four."
"No. there's nothing here. It looks all clear." she replied, fearfully casting here eyes down either side of the empty corridor which now felt far more ominous and dark.
"Ok. That's good. Now there's one last thing I want you to do. Look up into the corners of the ceiling, where there isn't much light. Again do it slowly. Can you see anything up there?"
Aurora swallowed hard and looked up into the dark reaches above her, subconsciously pressing herself against the wall to make herself smaller. She could see nothing in the darkness, and was about to report that it was all clear when she saw a slight movement in one corner. It was one of the two above the door, not much movement but enough to tell her something was there. Looking up slowly she peered into the darkness and saw two hollow points, almost like eyes, eyes that were looking straight back at her. That's when it jumped.
Sam sat up in his chair as Aurora's scream became a very real thing, the A.I's transparent form appearing on the desk beside him shaking violently and in a cowering foetal position.
"What happened?" he said quickly, attempting to find a way to calm the terrified A.I
"Th-th-th. . . There was something there! U-up, in the corner above the door! I saw two eyes staring at me from there! Then-then it jumped at me." Aurora looked up at Sam in terror. "What was that thing?!"
Sam sat back and sighed. "Goddamn it! . . . It was a daemon, one of eight identical creatures, ugly little bastards they are too. When I connected to the warp and brought the Bloodthirster through, it. . . it didn't come alone. while it traveled across the physical plane, those things came through into my mind. I managed to lock them away. . . but it would appear at least one has gotten free." He slammed his hand into the desk in frustration. "Damn them back to hell! . . I don't have enough time to fix it now. . . I don't suppose I could get your help when we get planet side?" He shook his head and looked toward the planet ahead. "Speaking of which. This ship is as prepared as it's going to get for a forced re-entry into a planets atmosphere. So, if you don't mind, I am going to try and get a bit more sleep before we hit the ground."
With that Sam sat back in the chair again and put his hands behind his head, quickly drifting off into the land of dreams.
A loud tear shook the ship, knocking Sam and the two men he was walking beside to the ground. "Jonas!" came the voice of Captain Gabriel, the man looking down the corridor at the wall of warp energy that was hurtling towards them. The two threw out a wall of pure will at the last second and Sam watched as the warp broke around it like waves on a rock.
When it had passed they helped each other up and the old Librarian looked at the Captain. "The ship won't survive many blasts like that, and the crew won't survive one. We need to get to the containment chamber in Librarians quarter before the next one hits. It's the only place strong enough to stand the attack."
"Well what are we standing around for. Come on!" Captain Gabriel replied, motioning down the corridor and starting to run. Jonas hauled Sam up from where he had been laying and they ran after the Captain.
As they ran through the dim corridors of the ships belly they passed the collapsed bodies of several crew members including another apprentice Librarian, at which Father Jonas stopped and looked closely at the corpse. "We were not ready for this. . . Not a single one of us," he muttered as he looked into the eyes that stared ahead into nothingness with a look of horror. After a few seconds he got up and turned back to Sam and the Captain. "We need to get to that chamber NOW! . . . There is no telling what other horrors will be unleashed onto this ship." He looked back at the corpse before starting to run again.
Eventually they turned a last corner and saw the sealed doors of the containment chambers before them. "Dammit!" Captain Gabriel shouted, hitting the wall with his fist. "This will take time we do. not. have!" He motioned to Sam and the door. "Me and Father Jonas will guard against any more waves, you get to opening it."
While the two older men took a balanced stance so that they could stop more waves without getting knocked over Sam ran up to the console and started typing in the commands. The doors had sealed when the warp hit and Sam was having to put in the override codes to get through.
Just as the doors started to open and they began to believe that the worst was over, another wave slammed against the ship, far more powerful than any of the others. Though the two men were able to stop the pure warp energy from harming the three of them, the impact with the ship caused them to get knocked off their feet once again, unfortunately with the power of the wave hitting the ship the ceiling of the corridor started to cave in, buckling under the force of pure chaos magic. Sam turned and watched in horror as, almost in slow motion, the ceiling fell on top of the two men, miraculously not harming Captain Gabriel, while Father Jonas had his legs pinned under the falling debris.
Both Captain and apprentice moved as fast as they could to clear the rubble from Father Jonas's lower section, throwing whole chunks of warped steel clear in their bid to rescue him. However the warp storm had not yet given up its attempts at sweeping the ship clear of life and they soon felt another wave start to pass through the Litany. With a grim look the two older men's eyes met, nodding as they came to a decision. Gathering their will they blasted Sam backwards into the containment chamber and forced the doors closed, sealing him off in safety.
Sam ran to the doors as the ship began to shake from the sheer force of the warp energy coursing through it, when the wave passed through he was flung to the ground from the jolt, hitting his head and blacking out.
Sam woke up with a start as the realisation hit him that the ship was actually shaking. Looking forward from the chair he had slept in he saw the front of the Litany's hull begin to heat up even with the shields at full.
"Ah good. You're awake." Aurora's voice startled him from his observations and caused him to look over at the A.I "We are just beginning to pass through the planets atmosphere now and I didn't think you would want to miss it."
Sitting up and shuffling back in his chair, Sam hit a small button of the arm of the chair, causing two belts to come out from the chair and lock him into place, forming an X over his chest. When he saw Aurora silently chuckling to herself he just shrugged. "They're there for a reason. Thought I might give them one last use."
At this she rolled her eyes and turned to watch their entry. "Well I guess there's nothing to do now except sit back and enjoy the ride."
As the ship passed through the outer layers of the atmosphere and began its angled descent towards the continent, Sam looked over at Aurora with a curious look. "Exactly where are we going to hit the ground. Because if there is civilisation down there I don't think they would much appreciate us crushing a town."
She looked down at her data-pad again, - He never understood why she did carry it. As an A.I connected to the ship she could see it all anyway. - before looking back at the continent before them and swearing under hear breath. "It appears we may do just that. Our trajectory places us right on top of a small town on the edge of a forest."
Sam grimaced slightly, staring at the console in front of him, willing it to give him a solution. He looked back towards the bow of the ship and the continent beyond, the slightly visible shield suddenly registering. "Transfer all of our remaining power to the upwards thrusters."
Aurora looked at him confused. "But if we do that then we loose the forward shields. The ship will be all but destroyed on impact!"
"Would you rather save a ship that will never be used again? Or a few thousand lives?" Sam asked, looking at her with dead serious eyes.
"You'll be killed!" She said weakly. knowing that he wasn't going back down.
"That's what you said at the start of this voyage. I didn't turn away then." He looked back to planet.
Aurora signed. This was one of the things she liked most about the young warlock, how he would always put the lives of others above his own. It also scared her half to death every time he did it. "Power transferring now," she said as the faint line of the shields disappeared and the ships descent slowed a fraction.
By this point Sam could almost make out the town in the distance, he grinned and looked at her. "You think we should give them a warning or something?"
An earth-shattering tone reverberated through the library, causing Princess Twilight to jump back in shock and drop the books that she had been sorting through. The sound continued for a full ten seconds before cutting off sharply, leaving her in the stark silence of library once more. It took a few seconds before her brain kicked back into gear, sending her outside to discover the origin of such an unnatural sound. As she exited the library she very nearly crashed head first into Rainbow Dash, who stood stock-still, the Daring-Do book she had come to return forgotten on the ground.
Twilight waved her hoof in front of Dash's face in an attempt to garner her attention, snapping her back to reality before a second blast bid them both freeze. When it once again finished after ten seconds Twilight noticed that Rainbow Dash's eyes were trained on something in the distance behind her. Curious as to what demanded her friends attention so fully, Twilight turned. And promptly fell onto her rump, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
A ginormous metal construction - for it could be no natural thing - was hurtling towards the town at breakneck speeds. After a few seconds of watching it approach, Twilight realised that, while it would miss the town, it would touchdown not far away. By this point, the gargantuan had begun to pass overhead, and it was only now that she saw how truly massive it was.
"It must be a few kilometres long at least!" She breathed in shock, silently pleased that she had actually managed to keep breathing. It took a good fifteen seconds before the final section of the ship passed over them, even at the speed it was going. Twilight saw the burners at the rear of the object and was faintly reminded of the coal engine in the trains. "It must be some kind of ship." She mused to herself before turning to Dash. "Quick! Follow it! You're a faster flyer than me, find out where it lands!"
Without protest for being commanded, even if Twilight was a Princess, Dash took off after the ship as fast as she could, breaking the sound barrier almost immediately. Within a few seconds she had caught up to it and flew up towards the top of the ship as there was what looked like a large window on the raised part, noticing as she flew a large insignia of what looked like the silhouette of a bird with a drop of blood in the centre. When she flew in close to the window looking area and looked inside, her wings almost missed a beat.
Inside, sitting at what looked like it was a set of controls. Was a human, a creature straight out of Equestrian mythology. And here was one a mere ten metres from Rainbow Dash. And there was what looked like another, smaller one on the desk beside it.
"Sam!" Aurora's voice broke Sam out of his own preparations for the imminent impact. He looked up to her and saw that she wore a look of shock.
"What is it? He asked her before following her pointing finger. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the cyan pegasus flying alongside them. "Well. I guess we know what lives here now."
Aurora simply stared at it in shock. "Impossible," she finally whispered. At this Sam chuckled, releasing his seat belts and standing up.
"You're kidding right. After what we've seen?" He shook his head and looked back at her. "Anyway,get in here. Wouldn't want you to get left behind if I make a sudden exit from the ship." The A.I nodded and flashed once before disappearing, a quick check assured him that she was safely relaxing inside his implants.
Checking that everything was prepared for the Litany of Fury's final landing. Sam turned to the pegasus and smiled, throwing it a crisp salute before the bow of the ship dug into the ground. pulling the ship to an almost immediate stop and sending him forwards into the glass, causing him to black out.
Rainbow Dash cried out when the human was thrown forward,fully prepared to see him go splat against the glass, it certainly seemed strong enough that he wouldn't break it. The glass however had other ideas, and shattered the moment the human touched it, giving it free passage to the outside, unfortunately not before giving it several nasty looking gash's.
Without thinking Dash flew forward and down, catching the human's unconscious form before it could come to any more harm. As she touched it however, images flashed through her mind, images of the human - Sam, she had managed to pick up - she saw things from his past. And what she saw terrified her.
Author's Note:
For those of you wondering why the ship has an A.I when they are actually illegal in the Warhammer 40K universe, that will be explained in a later chapter.
